Eight Crypto-Thinking Hats

Coin Thinker

TL;DR

Just a little twist on six thinking hats to make it more memorable. The main goal is to develop a more balanced view of any project or crypto itself. But first, we need to choose a topic. Pick an important question or issue so it would be worth the effort.

Thinking hats:

  • Optimist - Why will it succeed?
  • Pessimist - Why will it fail?
  • Realist - How to prevent failure? Is it possible?
  • Exploiter - How to extract the most value, by any means if necessary?
  • Conspiracy theorist - Who is pulling strings? How?
  • Tech - What is possible now technologically? What will be in the future?
  • Hater - How could I destroy it? What is my next step?
  • Strategist - How should I prepare for risks and opportunities?

You are using some of these hats. But do you know which you use the most?

The ratio between hats you are using is critical. Siting with an optimist hat for too long, you will become too naive and easy to exploit. Become aware of the ratio, and remember others' hats.

You can use more hats at once and emphasize some of them more. You can produce more personas and generate more ideas by stacking more hats. You can even simulate a particular group or community.

You can create artificial discussions between hats(stacked or not). You can do it by yourself or with friends. You can have two or more speakers. This exercise will produce different results than just going hat after hat.

So you use some hats and make conversations, but what is the observer using? The observer can also use any hat combo. It is a good time for 9th hat, critical thinking. Time to question the results, belief, and thinking itself.

Diversify your information sources and communities. The last thing you want is to get stuck in an echo chamber for too long.

Table of contents

  • Introduction
  • Topic
  • Thinking hats
    • Optimist
    • Pessimist
    • Realist
    • Exploiter
    • Conspiracy theorist
    • Tech
    • Hater
    • Strategist
  • The Ratio
  • Hats stacking
  • Discussions
  • The observer
  • Conclusion

Introduction

Just a little twist on six thinking hats to make it more memorable. The main goal is to have a more balanced view of events, predictions, and the crypto space itself. And we achieve it by consciously and systematically questioning any topic and ourselves from different angles.

You also stretch your imagination. Open yourself to more possibilities, and see everything in more colors. By doing it, you increase the chance of being more prepared for what will come.

Pick a topic

First, you must choose a topic, statement, or question to explore. I recommend going after more significant ideas if you are planning to do all steps. The general rule, you should pick something worth the effort. You have to start prioritizing. Which questions will give a better yield?

Some examples:

  • Will crypto change the world for the better?
  • Crypto will be adopted globally.
  • Decentralized social media is inevitable.
  • Is most projects just a scam?
  • BTC halving
  • ETH coming updates

Thinkings hats

  • Optimist
    • One of our favorites. Once you put on this hat, you can't see how crypto(or a minor part) could fail. Success is inevitable.
    • Endless possibilities for how crypto(or project) will succeed.
    • Why will it succeed? Why will we win? Why is it not possible to stop it?
  • Pessimist
    • Pessimists can still love crypto, but now you see an endless variety of how it could fail. Whatever project, the future is still dark for it.
    • Why will it fail? Why will the price go down? Why will it not change the world?
  • Realist
    • Realist is not in the middle between optimist and pessimist. Realists see it as it is, and it might be even if it is closer to pessimism. Once new data and insights come, you are willing to slide within this spectrum.
    • What do we have to do so it will succeed? How can we stop failure?
  • Exploiter
    • With this hat, your only interest is yourself and resources. You no longer care for others. You extract value by whatever means possible. You can steal crypto, make more sophisticated plans, or play by "rules."
    • How can I exploit others? What mistake are others making? How could I influence others to do what I want?
  • Conspiracy theorist
    • Now everywhere you see a conspiracy, it's just part of a bigger plan. You question the intentions of individual projects and crypto itself.
    • Who is behind it? How are they trying to exploit others? Did crypto start as an organic movement? Who is pulling the strings in the shadows?
  • Tech
    • With this hat, your only interest is tech. Its current state and possible future states. How it will develop in the future.
    • What problems do we have now? How to solve it? What piece of tech is necessary? Who is innovating? What will be possible?
  • Hater
    • Now, most people love to hate you. You love to hate too. You have a burning desire to see crypto disappearing. You are willing to spread the word about how bad it is and influence as many people as possible.
    • How to harm them? Wich data to cherry-pick? How could I help to destroy it?
  • Strategy
    • With this hat, you strategize. Hopefully, you were using the other seven hats, and now you have a nice list of possible outcomes, risks, and opportunities. Now you prepare for them.
    • How can I increase my chances of success? How to minimize or eliminate risks? What will other players do? How will I respond to most of the events?

You can use them in order, one by one. Add more hats if you wish. Even use socks instead of hats. It is fun to explore each individually, but we can make it even more fun.

The Ratio

You are already doing it to some degree, but are you aware of your personal hats ratio? The ratio is significant because it will directly influence your actions. For example, sitting with a primarily optimistic hat, you will have huge gaps on most risks. To pessimistic? Then you will give up to early, without a fight.

You can experiment with ratios. First, it would be a good idea to use hats more which you overlook most of the time. This will allow an increasing chance of aligning your worldview with reality. But you are free to adjust the ratio based on the situation.

Hats stacking

Another step would be stacking more hats, as much as you want. You can emphasize some of them more and fine-tune the personas. These stacks could also represent a community or group because it's unrealistic to think everyone wears only one.

Keep in mind that we can have a variety of different stacks here. It would take a lot of energy to try every combination every time. The goal should be to aim at least for a few stacks, which makes sense to you based on the situation.

Some stacks feel awkward. In that case, you should fine-tune it and rephrase it. For example, optimist and hater. By my provided definition, they love and hate crypto at the same time. It could be rephrased like this:

  • Hater who is very optimistic about upcoming crypto failure or
  • Optimists who love most of the crypto but hate some parts of it

Discussions

You can use hats as individual steps or create discussions between them. You can have as many speakers as makes sense to you. You can try it with friends.

It is more like a creativity exercise. In such discussions, you will be able to produce interesting ideas. Moreover, defending yourself intellectually from a few angles will develop you better.

But we still have one problem our possible hats, hat stacking, and discussion combination grew exponentially. So again, you should prioritize some combinations more based on the situation. Play around with it.

The Observer

You switch hats, doing some discussions and generating ideas. Good, now time to go more meta. The observer is observing all these discussions and hats it were. The observer can use any hat combo, or you could add more observers if you have more time.

Now would be an excellent time to add one more hat, critical thinking. After you generate some ideas, remember to question them:

  • How do I know if I am wearing it?
  • Am I a realist now? How do I know it?
  • Why I chose mostly these hats?
  • How am I biased here?
  • Am I still using similar thinking patterns?
  • Why do I hate some of these hats?

Conclusion

Well, this is not a groundbreaking discovery. Some parts we are already naturally applying as we learn. But it's still essential to use it constantly. If you want to improve, you can't look at only one worldview.

Such techniques should be applied not only to crypto but also to other important areas of your life.

To build a habit, you can simplify everything and ask at least one question per hat. Introduce discusion later.

Keep in mind your information sources and communities. You should diversify here at least a few more worldviews. Or you will get stuck in an echo chamber.